From humble beginnings to digital giants, the web development life cycle consists of six main stages, each of which can be further broken down into steps to help understand what type of work is most essential to your website’s growth.
Below we will cover each of these steps to gain a better understanding of how each stage affects your websites growth and future potential.
Let our journey begin!
Step 1. Website Planning | You Need a Web Developers Guidance
You need to identify your website’s purpose, who is its target audience? and what do you hope to achieve with your website? Your research and planning stage help create a solid foundation for your website to grow as we move forward.
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Develop a purpose and plan for your website.
- Set out clear goals & objectives for your website.
- Talk to a web developer to establish the best ways to achieve these goals.
Step 2. Design | You Need a Digital Designer/ Web Developer
During the website design phase, you need to create a wireframe and a design mock-up which will help determine where all the elements of your website will be placed, and what the website will look like. This can be accomplished using mock-up software such as Figma to create highly detailed mock-ups.
This process includes market research, keyword research, user persona creation, and competition analysis. This is a very important stage in the development of your website as both UI and UX need to be considered heavily at this stage to benefit your end user’s experience while using your website.
For this reason, both designers and web developers should be included at this stage, your site should be both functionally correct and aesthetically pleasing to help promote positive user interaction and user traffic growth.
Remember Google loves sites that offer its users a high-quality experience and will use this as a website ranking factor.
Essentially if your users don’t have a good experience while using your site Google doesn’t want to send them there, which makes sense as Google wants to send its users to pages that best meet the user’s needs.
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Wireframe Creation, this allows you to visualise the website’s skeletal framework and determine the placement of different elements.
- Design Mock-ups, use tools like Figma or Adobe XD to craft detailed, high-fidelity mock-ups.
- Competitive Analysis, investigate what competitors are doing right and where they’re lacking.
Step 3. Web Development | You Need a Back End & Front End Developer
Front-end and back-end development take place during this stage, ensuring that the website is functional and interactive. This is an exciting time in the life cycle of your website as your mock-ups go into effect fully realised!
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Develop the front end using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to bring the design to life.
- Implement server-side functionalities (back-end development) like database integration.
- Ensure that the website is mobile-friendly.
Step 4. Testing | You Need Developers & Analytics Specialists
During the testing phase, it is important to run quality assurance, user acceptance testing, and performance testing to ensure your website is working well and ready for its audience.
As previously mentioned, if your users are having a bad experience be it bugs on the site or slow site speeds Google will try to send them somewhere else. This is why this stage is important to ensure the future growth of your website.
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Check for bugs and any design or development errors.
- Perform user acceptance testing (UAT) to validate that the site meets the user’s needs.
- Test the website’s performance on different devices and browsers.
- Test load times and the site’s ability to handle multiple users simultaneously.
Step 5. Launch | You Will Need a Developer & SEO Specialist
At last, the launch phase of a website begins! Your website is now ready to explore the World Wide Web.
SEO and analytics are set up at this stage to ensure your website reaches its intended audience, this is done to ensure your website continues to develop in the correct direction based on the data collected from analytics and the improvements made to its SEO strategy.
This is also the stage where you want to consider testing how real users interact with your website. This can be done by utilising software such as Microsoft Clarity, software that tracks where on your website users navigate to, and spots they click on the most.
This is done to identify which areas of your site need improvement, and which areas are performing well. This data can be used to improve overall the UX and UI design of your website and is very helpful in understanding your user’s behaviour on your site.
It’s important to remember now that your site is growing your main question should be is my site growing in the right direction? and attracting the right audience?
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Deploy the website, making it live on the internet.
- Set up website analytics to track user behaviour and website performance.
- Announce the launch through the appropriate channels, such as email newsletters and social media as these can all be great assets while building initial site awareness.
Step 6. Maintenance & Site Growth | You will Need a Developer & SEO Specialist
Regular updates, analytics monitoring, SEO optimisation, conversion rate tracking, and security updates are carried out to ensure your website remains robust and can grow its audience consistently.
This cycle then repeats, as websites often undergo revisions, redesigns, and updates, repeating the lifecycle with a new version of the site.
You may also want to consider publishing written content at this stage related to your site’s main services or products. The reason behind this is because this helps your site drive not simply random traffic, but relevant traffic that is valuable to your site, such as potential customers.
How much content you publish per week or month is entirely up to you however we recommend focusing on the quality of the content over the quantity of content from an SEO best practice standpoint.
At this stage, you will need the following:
- Regularly update the website’s content to keep it fresh and relevant.
- Monitor website analytics to gain insights and make data-backed decisions.
- Conduct ongoing SEO optimisation to improve the website’s visibility.
Ending our Journey on a High Note!
The website development process is an exciting voyage of creation, nurturing, and growth.
Each stage, from the initial planning to the rigorous maintenance, is vital to ensure your website doesn’t just exist but thrives, evolves, and delivers results.
Remember, you’re not alone in this journey, with web development experts at your disposal, achieving the perfect website that aligns with your vision is not just a dream but a well-forged reality.
